Illinois Politicians Plot New Assaults on Gun Ownership

Gun owners in Illinois are bracing for a fight against the latest round of legislation aimed at inhibiting their right to keep and bear arms. With efforts to essentially ban the ownership of firearms having been struck down by the Supreme Court, and Illinois now standing as the only state that makes no provision for legal concealed carry of firearms, leftist politicians in Chicago and throughout the state are far from conceding defeat.

Gun owners in Illinois are bracing for a fight against the latest round of legislation aimed at inhibiting their right to keep and bear arms. With efforts to essentially ban the ownership of firearms having been struck down by the Supreme Court, and Illinois now standing as the only state that makes no provision for legal concealed carry of firearms, leftist politicians in Chicago and throughout the state are far from conceding defeat.

This time, according to critics, they are attempting to interfere with the free exercise of Second Amendment liberties by simply taxing gun ownership and use beyond the means of many residents.

Taxation has often been used as a means of social coercion; so-called “sin taxes” on alcohol and cigarettes, for example, have been used as a means of supposedly discouraging the use of such products, while providing the government with a lucrative means of taxing the public in addition to many other forms of property, income, and sales taxes that regularly assault the public’s pocketbooks. Now, Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago), a member of the Illinois legislature, is proposing a similar “sin tax” on ammunition. At the same time, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is pushing for a new statewide “handgun registry” that would not only impose an onerous burden on gun owners ($65 per firearm), but would also create a massive state database tracking the location and ownership of every firearm in the state.

Cassidy’s bill to increase the taxes on ammunition is supposedly intended to fund a “high-crime trauma center grant fund” by means of a two-percent surtax on ammunition. The grant fund would then be used to give financial assistance to trauma centers in “high-crime areas.” An article by Judson Berger for FoxNews explains the logic behind the new tax:

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